Senate leaders give floor time to vulnerable Dems

Top Democrats are putting something special together for their Senate colleagues in tough races this year: a vulnerable-incumbent protection program.

At-risk senators will get to beef up their back-home cred by taking the lead on bills and amendments tailored to their campaigns. And they won’t be stuck in the back row at news conferences but will be in front of TV cameras and taking center stage during Senate debates.

Leaders are coalescing around giving Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor the lead on a bill to protect the Medicare eligibility age, which has become a key issue in his race. Kay Hagan will tout her fight for long-term unemployment benefits rejected by the GOP-dominated North Carolina Legislature and her likely opponent, statehouse Speaker Thom Tillis. And leaders hope to give Jeanne Shaheen a triumph on energy efficiency, a bipartisan breakthrough that would play well in purple New Hampshire.

There are other, more narrowly tailored options that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and his lieutenants could consider. Hagan has a bipartisan deal on a sportsman’s bill to shore up her hunting cred, while Colorado’s Mark Udall and Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu want to fast-track U.S. natural gas imports — a key industry in their states.

“We try to showcase our members who are up for reelection so they have a chance to shine and show what they believe in, why they are seeking reelection in their states,” said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). “I think it helps a lot.”

Other possibilities include bequeathing a veterans bill to Montana’s John Walsh, who served in the military, and taking up manufacturing legislation from Delaware’s Chris Coons. And Democratic leaders still haven’t ruled out a vote on proposed fixes to Obamacare championed by red-state Democrats, despite reluctance to do anything to undermine the law.

One of the most intense election-year pushes comes from Pryor, who wants to prevent House Republicans from raising the eligibility age of Medicare above 65. In Arkansas, he has repeatedly attacked GOP opponent Rep. Tom Cotton for supporting a conservative budget that would gradually raise the eligibility age to 70. Now he stands to get a vote on his own bill to build on those broadsides.

“People are concerned about that. And we have over 500,000 people in our state who are on Medicare, and it’s a very important part of their lives. And so we want to protect it and not let some folks — especially on the House side — try to fundamentally alter it,” Pryor said.

A spokesman for Cotton’s campaign shot back: “Anyone who voted for Obamacare, as Sen. Pryor did, can’t credibly claim to be ‘protecting Medicare.’”

The strategy isn’t just pursuing overtly partisan ideas to appeal to the Democratic base — though there’s plenty of that — but also about forcing Republicans to help some of their biggest Democratic targets score legislative victories.

Shaheen’s energy efficiency bill with Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) is on a shortlist of bipartisan proposals Reid may bring up by this summer. It may have sufficient GOP support to avoid a repeat of last fall, when a push by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) on an Obamacare amendment tanked the bill, thanks to revisions made to incorporate ideas from both parties.

One senior Senate GOP aide stressed that such bipartisan measures still face an uncertain fate because Democratic leaders don’t want to vote on Republican energy amendments, including on the Keystone XL pipeline. And in an election year that tilts toward the GOP, some Republicans will be all too happy to stymie bipartisan bills that might help Democrats keep the Senate.

“Does that happen? Sure it does. I think we know that,” said Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee ranking member Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a Shaheen-Portman supporter. “Sometimes people look at who the author is, and look at whether or not they’re running, and then decide whether they’re even going to look at the bill.”

Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) blamed election-year politics for preventing lawmakers during the previous Congress from passing a bill to increase access for hunters, anglers and other sportsmen — in part because his stewardship of the bill looked good back in Montana.

“Unfortunately, people thought that if they passed that, I’d win the race in Montana. Guess what? I won it anyway,” Tester said in an interview. “It needs to pass because it’s a good bill. Has nothing to do with politics.”

This time, the lead Democratic sponsor of sportsman legislation is Hagan, who is targeted by the GOP. Hagan introduced a bipartisan compromise in early February with Murkowski that is cosponsored by a swath of vulnerable Democrats and deal-seeking Republicans.

Hagan will have something even more state-specific to tout Monday when the Senate passes its unemployment bill. Democratic leaders slipped in Hagan’s language to restore long-term unemployment benefits to North Carolina that fell out of federal compliance — aid that expired under the watch of state House Speaker Tillis.

Though energy issues often divide Democrats, leaders also want to help Landrieu, the newly installed Senate Energy and Natural Resources chairwoman, claim a legislative win for her energy producing state. Landrieu passed a popular Senate bill to rein in rising flood insurance rates in Louisiana, but so did her chief GOP opponent, Rep. Bill Cassidy, accentuating the need for her to capitalize on a fortuitously timed leap to the chairmanship.